Editing Ernest Hemingway (section)

== Idaho and suicide ==
[[File:Hemingway SunValley.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Hemingway bird-hunting at [[Silver Creek (Idaho)|Silver Creek]], near [[Picabo, Idaho]], in January 1959. With him are [[Gary Cooper]] and Bobbie Powell|alt=photograph of two men and woman]]
After leaving Cuba, in Sun Valley, Hemingway continued to rework the material that was published as ''A Moveable Feast'' through the 1950s.<ref name="Meyers p533" /> In mid-1959, he visited Spain to research a series of bullfighting articles commissioned by ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine.<ref name="Meyers p520">Meyers (1985), 520</ref> ''Life'' wanted only 10,000&nbsp;words, but the manuscript grew out of control.<ref>Baker (1969), 553</ref> For the first time in his life he could not organize his writing, so he asked [[A. E. Hotchner]] to travel to Cuba to help him. Hotchner helped trim the ''Life'' piece down to 40,000 words, and Scribner's agreed to a full-length book version (''[[The Dangerous Summer]]'') of almost 130,000 words.<ref name="R544ff">Reynolds (1999), 544–547</ref>

Hotchner found Hemingway to be "unusually hesitant, disorganized, and confused",<ref name="Mellow pp598–600">qtd. in Mellow (1992), 598–600</ref> and suffering badly from failing eyesight.<ref name="Meyers p542-544">Meyers (1985), 542–544</ref> He left Cuba for the last time on July 25, 1960. Mary went with him to New York where he set up a small office and attempted unsuccessfully to work. Soon after, he left New York, traveling without Mary to Spain to be photographed for the front cover of ''Life'' magazine. A few days later the news reported that he was seriously ill and on the verge of dying, which panicked Mary until she received a cable from him telling her, "Reports false. Enroute Madrid. Love Papa."<ref>qtd. in Reynolds (1999), 546</ref>

He was, in fact, seriously ill, and believed himself to be on the verge of a breakdown.<ref name="R544ff" /> Feeling lonely, he took to his bed for days, retreating into silence, despite having the first installments of ''The Dangerous Summer'' published in ''Life'' that September to good reviews.<ref name="Mellow pp598-601">Mellow (1992), 598–601</ref> In October, he went back to New York, where he refused to leave Mary's apartment, presuming that he was being watched. She quickly took him to Idaho, where they were met at the train station in Ketchum by local physician George Saviers.<ref name="R544ff" />

He was concerned about finances, missed Cuba, his books, and his life there, and fretted that he would never return to retrieve the manuscripts that he had left in a bank vault.<ref name="R348">Reynolds (1999), 348</ref> He believed the manuscripts that would be published as ''Islands in the Stream'' and ''True at First Light'' were lost.<ref name="R354">Reynolds (1999), 354</ref> He became paranoid, believing that the FBI was actively monitoring his movements in Ketchum.<ref group="note">The FBI had opened a file on him during World War II, when he used the ''Pilar'' to patrol the waters off Cuba, and [[J. Edgar Hoover]] had an agent in Havana watch him during the 1950s, see Mellow (1992), 597–598; and appeared to be monitoring his movements at that time, as an agent documented in a letter written a few months later, in January 1961, about Hemingway's stay at the Mayo clinic. see Meyers (1985), 543–544</ref><ref name="Meyers p542-544" /> Mary was unable to care for her husband and it was anathema for a man of Hemingway's generation to accept he suffered from mental illness. At the end of November, Saviers flew him to the [[Mayo Clinic]] in Minnesota on the pretext that he was to be treated for [[hypertension]].<ref name="R348" />  He was checked in under Saviers's name to maintain anonymity.<ref name="Mellow pp598-601" />

Meyers writes that "an aura of secrecy surrounds Hemingway's treatment at the Mayo" but confirms that he was treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as many as 15 times in December 1960.<ref>Meyers (1985), 547–550</ref> Reynolds gained access to Hemingway's records at the Mayo, which document 10 ECT sessions. The doctors in Rochester told Hemingway the depressive state for which he was being treated may have been caused by his long-term use of [[Reserpine]] and [[Ritalin]].<ref>Reynolds (2000), 350</ref> Of the ECT therapy, Hemingway told Hotchner, "What is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure, but we lost the patient."<ref name=Hotchner280>Hotchner (1983), 280</ref> In late January 1961 he was sent home, as Meyers writes, "in ruins". Asked to provide a tribute to President [[John F. Kennedy]] in February he could only produce a few sentences after a week's effort.

A few months later, on April 21, Mary found Hemingway with a shotgun in the kitchen. She called Saviers, who admitted Hemingway to the Sun Valley Hospital under sedation. Once the weather cleared, Saviers flew again to Rochester with his patient.<ref name="Meyers p551">Meyers (1985), 551</ref> Hemingway underwent three electroshock treatments during that visit.<ref>Reynolds (2000), 355</ref> He was released at the end of June and was home in Ketchum on June 30.

Two days later Hemingway "quite deliberately" shot himself with his favorite shotgun in the early morning hours of July 2, 1961.<ref>Reynolds (2000), 16</ref> Meyers writes that he unlocked the basement storeroom where his guns were kept, went upstairs to the front entrance foyer, "pushed two shells into the twelve-gauge [[Boss & Co.|Boss]] shotgun&nbsp;... put the end of the barrel into his mouth, pulled the trigger and blew out his brains."<ref>Meyers (1985), 560</ref> In 2010, however, it was argued that Hemingway never owned a Boss and that the suicide gun was actually made by W. & C. Scott & Son, his favorite one that was used at shooting competitions in Cuba, duck hunts in Italy or at a safari in East Africa.<ref>{{cite web | url =https://gardenandgun.com/articles/hemingways-suicide-gun/|title=Hemingway's Suicide Gun|work=[[Garden & Gun]]| date=October 20, 2010| accessdate =July 21, 2024}}</ref>

[[File:Hemingway Memorial Sun Valley.jpg|thumb|upright|The Hemingway Memorial in [[Sun Valley, Idaho]]|alt=photograph of a stone memorial in the snow]]
When the authorities arrived, Mary was sedated and taken to the hospital. Returning to the house the next day, she cleaned the house and saw to the funeral and travel arrangements. Bernice Kert writes that it "did not seem to her a conscious lie" when she told the press that his death had been accidental.<ref name="Kertp504">Kert (1983), 504</ref> In a press interview five years later, Mary confirmed that he had shot himself.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/08/23/archives/widow-believes-hemingway-committed-suicide-she-tells-of-his.html|title=Widow Believes Hemingway Committed Suicide; She Tells of His Depression and His 'Breakdown' Assails Hotchner Book|first=Harry|last=Gilroy|date=August 23, 1966|access-date=July 11, 2017|newspaper=The New York Times|archive-date=February 26, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210226161943/https://www.nytimes.com/1966/08/23/archives/widow-believes-hemingway-committed-suicide-she-tells-of-his.html|url-status=live}}</ref><!-- check this --> Family and friends flew to Ketchum for the funeral, officiated by the local Catholic priest, who believed that the death had been accidental.<ref name="Kertp504" /> An altar boy fainted at the head of the casket during the funeral, and Hemingway's brother Leicester wrote: "It seemed to me Ernest would have approved of it all."<ref>Hemingway (1996), 14–18</ref>

Hemingway's behavior during his final years had been similar to that of his father before he killed himself;<ref name="Burwell p234">Burwell (1996), 234</ref> his father may have had [[hereditary hemochromatosis]], whereby the excessive accumulation of iron in tissues culminates in mental and physical deterioration.<ref name="Burwell p14">Burwell (1996), 14</ref> Medical records made available in 1991 confirmed that Hemingway had been diagnosed with hemochromatosis in early 1961.<ref name="Burwell p189">Burwell (1996), 189</ref> His sister Ursula and his brother [[Leicester Hemingway|Leicester]] also killed themselves.<ref>Oliver (1999), 139–149</ref>

Hemingway's health was further complicated by heavy drinking throughout most of his life, which exacerbated his erratic behavior, and his head injuries increased the effects of the alcohol.<ref name="Desnoyers p12" /><ref name="Farah p43">Farah,  (2017), 43</ref> The neuropsychiatrist Andrew Farah's 2017 book ''Hemingway's Brain'', offers a forensic examination of Hemingway's mental illness. In her review of Farah's book, Beegel writes that Farah postulates Hemingway suffered from the combination of depression, the side-effects of nine serious concussions, then, she writes, "Add alcohol and stir".<ref name="Beegel p122ff">Beegel,  (2017), 122–124</ref> Farah writes that Hemingway's concussions resulted in [[chronic traumatic encephalopathy]], which eventually led to a form of dementia,<ref name="Farah p39ff">Farah,  (2017), 39–40</ref> most likely [[dementia with Lewy bodies]]. He bases his hypothesis on Hemingway's symptoms consistent with DLB, such as the various [[comorbidities]], and most particularly the delusions, which surfaced as early as the late 1940s and were almost overwhelming during the final Ketchum years.<ref name="Farah p56">Farah,  (2017), 56</ref> Beegel writes that Farah's study is convincing and "should put an end to future speculation".<ref name="Beegel p122ff" />